Hope is a Powerful Thing: Craft Historian Andrew Glasgow
In the 71st episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown is in Asheville, NC. In January of 2023, Sarah was making the drive from Florida to Pennsylvania and planned her trip around the opportunity to interview craft historian Andrew Glasgow. The two were introduced the previous summer while at the Penland School of Craft, and Sarah, having known of Andrew’s vast career within the craft community, was thrilled when he agreed to an interview.
The two craft appreciators sat down in Andrew’s mid-century modern home to discuss how the Alabama native went from thinking he’d be a dentist to being an executive director of a non-profit in New York City. A year into his position as the executive director of the American Craft Council, Andrew was diagnosed with Lymphoma, and he shares with Sarah how his mindset, hope, and being his own advocate helped him through the estimated 806+ drug infusions and being declared cancer-free in 2013.
Suggested reading: works by Temple Grandin
Andrew and Sarah in his Asheville, NC home, January 2023.
Andrew Glasgow is the retired Executive Director of the American Craft Council. An Alabama native, Mr. Glasgow received an Art History degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. After three years as Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts at the Birmingham Museum of Art, Mr. Glasgow joined the Southern Highland Craft Guild in Asheville as the Curator of Education. Four years later, he became the Assistant Director of Blue Spiral 1, a gallery that focuses on the arts and crafts of the South. He returned to the Southern Highland Craft Guild as Director of Programs and Collections before being named Executive Director of The Furniture Society in 2000. IN 2007 Mr. Glasgow was hired as Executive Director of the American Craft Council, then in NYC. He retired due to a long-term illness in 2009.
The Penland School of Crafts recently created the Andrew Glasgow Writers’ Residency, which provides time for writers, scholars, and curators to work on topics designed to advance the field of crafts. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
